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Good Melodic Bands For Someone Looking To Get Into Metal



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26.10.2012 - 21:49
Saiyanity

One of my friends is looking to get into metal, but he's much more in the melodic side of music than I am and also unlike me dislikes harsh vocals, making it hard for me to recommend him anything. So I figured my trusty fellow metalstormers would be able to help me out. If anyone could give me some good melodic (preferably clean singing) bands for a beginner it'd be much appreciated. Also he's a musician so I think he'd dig progressive more than the average listener.

Thanks.
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27.10.2012 - 11:52
Warman
Erotic Stains
Iron Maiden and/or Judas Priest not doing anything for him?
Well, melodic and maybe progressive stuff? I guess... Symphony X? Maybe even Dream Theater? Sonata Arctica? I'm just spitting out the obvious stuff. Topics like these really shows how bad I am at clean vocal bands, I just listen to the classic stuff. Mostly.
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27.10.2012 - 21:12
Ag Fox
Angel No More
Symphony X is probably too harsh for him to begin with.
When I show non-metal friends The Scarecrow album by Avantasia, which is kinda like a display of vocal prowess, they usually like it.
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loves 小巫
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30.11.2012 - 06:36
Pfalz
Account deleted
Here's some classics off the top of my head: Iron Maiden, Dream Theater, Sabaton, Sonata Arctica, Anthrax, Blind Guardian, Dio, Nightwish, DragonForce.
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30.11.2012 - 15:46
Warman
Erotic Stains
Written by Ag Fox on 27.10.2012 at 21:12

When I show non-metal friends The Scarecrow album by Avantasia, which is kinda like a display of vocal prowess, they usually like it.

Yeah, Avantasia might be a good choice.
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15.12.2012 - 21:39
Anthem

Sylvan, Riverside, are easier sides of prog metal.
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I swear by my life and love for it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor shall I ask another to live for me.

John Galt
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16.12.2012 - 00:37
Torelli

I also used to dislike harsh vocals and wasnt that much of a metalfan. In the beginning i listen mostly to nightwish, much beacuse of Tarjas voice(shame on me, I know). what got me more into the (metal/hardrock) music itself was queensryche (operation mindcrime to be more specific), that might work for your friend aswell. Can't really recomend any other specific band though, but thinking of what got me in to other gengres and i thought of a couple of things that might open him up to metal:

1) Movies/videogames/ whatever he thinks is good that contains metalmusic. he will asociate the music with the media, thus getting more open for the song itself.

2) Mix a gengre he likes along with metalmusic. Given how many [insert suffix]- metalbands there are out there, a song shouldnt be so hard to find.

3) Introduce him to music that are not quite metal, but close. makes him open to more metal-like music.

4) overexposure him to any kind of metalgengre, and play it on a regular basis. eventually he will be indoctrinated enough to like it. there is a 50 % chance that he will detest the gengre even more though. But based on that he want to get into metal, atleast he will listen to it with an open mind.

5) A song with good lyrics. Keep him listening to the message and graduatly the apprisation of the music will come aswell.

6) You also mentioned he is a musician. then let him describe what kind of things he looks for when playing/listening to music(both musicwise but also the kind of emotions the music generates) and see if you can find any simularities in what he describes and specific metalbands/metalsongs.
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16.12.2012 - 21:58
Identitarian

I would recommend your friend to listen to Arena´s masterpiece "Pepper´s Ghost", or Helloween´s "Keeper"-records. I think he´d appreciate these discs.
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19.12.2012 - 03:40
john_mcc

It is difficult to predict what your friend is likely to like without knowing more concrete details about what he likes right now, and it is best not to invest too much in any one band to recommend since people can randomly like or dislike any album or band based on unpredictable individual tastes. I might have had a somewhat similar description of what I was looking for as your friend 10 years ago but nearly all melodic metal with clean vocals that might have been recommended to me would have had me diving for the off button faster than a Rhianna song (still would in fact) because there are a lot of other likes and dislikes that I might have neglected to mention. If you have only one CD to give him I would make it a mix CD containing the best song from a dozen wildly different bands, just to see if any of them stick out for him. If he is willing to give several albums a try even if the first couple don't exactly click for him then the pressure to pick a winner first time is off.

That said, here are a few albums that you might want to consider...

Ayreon - "The Human Equation" or "Into The Electric Castle" might be a good choice for someone looking for very melodic Progressive Metal. Some will love them (I do), others will find them far too cheesy and predictable. All of the prog fans that I have met who don't like Ayreon for this reason seem to love Pain of Salvation, "Remedy Lane" is the best Pain Of Salvation album to start with. Opeth - "Damnation" is another very good album, although it is not really Metal but is more mellow prog-rock. Your friend should avoid all other Opeth albums for the time being but that one usually impresses most non-metal fans except for those who find it rather downbeat and depressive and prefer something more cheerful and upbeat, like Sonata Arctica or Nightwish, who are the first Metal bands that I would play to a pop music fan if I had no other information about them, I have known a few mostly pop fans go out and actually buy a Nightwish album after hearing one song by them, but they would likely put a punk fan off of Metal for life so it is all a case of knowing your audience at the end of the day. I actually know a non-Metal fan who loves Slayer's Reign In Blood but not any Metal that we would call melodic because he only wants to hear Metal that is in your face aggressive and says that other music genres are better at being nice. I suspect that your friend will end up liking at least a few bands that you wouldn't have predicted that he would go for.

Finally, I assume that the desire to hear more Metal is actually coming from your friend? Because if it is not then nothing will work. People will strongly dislike anything that they feel is being forced on them.
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